On Page 42: Moby Dick or The Whale

[Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, 150th anniversary edition, W.W. Norton and Company Inc. 2002]

This week’s page 42 falls in “Chapter 6: The Street” of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick or The Whale. This American classic is usually described as one of those books you either love or hate, but regardless of your feelings on the text there is a lot you can draw from it. “The Street” juxtaposes the whalers with the aristocracy of New Bedford and on page 42 we get the middle portion of this feat.

The narrator tells us that the work of whaling is not for gentle workers or “dandies” and points out the comical nature of those that would attempt to be whalers. It reiterates the rough nature of the job: “not that this famous town has only harpooners, cannibals, and bumpkins to show her visitors.” There is an understanding that the docks and the workers bringing in the oil are lower class and usually outcasts of society.

In the nature of such economies, all the money and valuable trinkets from the whaling efforts trickled upward. We are given the extravagant and gluttonous image of the upper classes:

“[F]athers, they say, give whales for dowers to their daughters and portion off their nieces with a

few porpoise a-piece… they say, they have reservoirs of oil in every house, and every night

recklessly burn their lengths in spermaceti candles.”  

All the wealth and joy from whaling endeavours is felt by the investors and their families that live in New Bedford. In the focused look at the upper class, we don’t here the diversity in description that we get about the working class. Considering the time and the location, we can safely assume they were all white people. This stratification in American society is not new, but Melville offers us another look at the two classes next to each other. Whether we look at the 1850’s or the present, class disparages are one of the sad heritages of America.